Woman accuses United of giving her seat to Houston's Sheila Jackson Lee

A woman claims United Airlines gave her first-class seat to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

>> The PR nightmares of airline companies

A woman claims United Airlines gave her first-class seat to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

>> The PR nightmares of airline companies

Photo: Courtesy Photo

Image 2 of 19

Image 3 of 19

Seat nab

Shirley Yamauchi was told by United Airlines employees in Houston to give up her son's seat to another passenger on a flight bound for Boston. Yamuchi, of Kapolei, Hawaii said she paid $969 for the flight. The child was forced to sit on his mother's lap.

In June 2017, United Airlines said the company was reviewing an incident where a Houston employee allegedly attempted to "wrestle" a violin from a passenger. The tug of war broke out when classical musician Yennifer Correia was boarding a flight from Houston to St. Louis and a United Airlines supervisor told Correia she could not carry a violin with her.

In 2008, musician Dave Carroll's guitar was broken while being transported by United Airlines. After Carroll was not reimbursed by the airline, he released a song called, "United Breaks Guitars," which went viral and ended up costing the company $180 million in of stock.

In 2012, severe thunderstorms caused multiple United Airline planes to sit on the tarmac for more than three hours, surpassing the limit put in place by The U. S. Department of Transportation. Worst of all, some of the grounded planes did not have functioning bathrooms. The next year, United Airlines was fined $1.1 million over the delays.

In 2015, United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek abruptly resigned amid an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office. According to Fortune, the resignation "stemmed from a federal investigation into the allegedly politically-motivated lane closures of the George Washington Bridge leading into New York City."

In March of 2017, United Airlines stopped two teenage girls from boarding a flight because they were wearing leggings, a move that social media users criticized for being sexist. A spokesperson for the company said the girls' leggings violated their dress code policy.

In December of 2016, YouTube star Adam Saleh was removed from a Delta airlines flight. Saleh claimed he was removed from the plane for speaking Arabic. Delta rebuked the claim and said Saleh was removed because he was a known prankster and "sought to disrupt the cabin with provocative behavior, including shouting." Either way, the incident sparked heated social media criticism for both parties.

In February of 2017, a Michigan woman's dog died after a United Airlines flight. According to a Facebook post by the passenger, the dog had to spend 20 hours in a kennel since he could not fit on the originally planned flight. The dog died due to complications from stress.

In 2015, a United Airlines attendant reportedly refused to let a mom sit her 3-year-old quadriplegic daughter with cerebral palsy on her lap for safety reasons. The airline later issued an apology to the mother who said she was humiliated by the incident.

In 2012, a teen with down syndrome was not allowed to fly first class. The mother claims they were being "singled out," while an American Airlines representative said the 16-year-old was a flight risk.

In 2010, a businessman's complaints received widespread attention after he was asked to switch seats by British Airways due to a rule keeping adult males from sitting next to a child they did not know. The airline changed the seating rule after the 35-year-old businessman said he was being treated like a "child molester."

In November of 2016, an Indiana family traveling with a disabled child and their service dog were kicked off their flight. The airline claimed the dog was too large, but later apologized for the incident.

In 2010, film director Kevin Smith was removed from a flight because of his size. In a recording posted on his website, Smith said he fit in the seat and theorized he may have been removed because an airline employee did not like his movies.

In 2017, aviation unions and groups sued the Obama administration over the decision to allow Norwegian Air to fly to the U.S., a move many saw as a threat to American jobs. During a heated election cycle, the move made national headlines.

Woman accuses United of giving her seat to Houston's Sheila Jackson Lee

1 / 19

Back to Gallery

A passenger on a flight from Houston to Washington D.C. has accused United Airlines of giving her first-class seat to U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. D-Houston, and then threatening to remove her from the plane for complaining and snapping a photo of the Houston congresswoman.

"It was just so completely humiliating," said Jean-Marie Simon, a 63-year-old attorney and private school teacher who used 140,000 miles on Dec. 3 to purchase the first-class tickets to take her from Washington D.C. to Guatemala and back home.

Now Playing:

To a Congresswoman

Media: Fortune

When it came time to board the last leg of her flight home from George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Dec. 18, after a roughly hour-long weather delay, Simon said the gate attendant scanned her paper ticket and told her it was not in the system.

Did you cancel your flight?, the attendant asked.

"No," she said she replied. "I just want to go home."

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

Her seat, 1A, was taken, she was told. Simon was given a $500 voucher and reseated in row 11, Economy Plus.

Simon later learned that Jackson Lee was in her pre-purchased seat and has alleged that the congresswoman received preferential treatment, which United denies.

"After thoroughly examining our electronic records, we found that upon receiving a notification that Flight 788 was delayed due to weather, the customer appears to have canceled her flight from Houston to Washington, D.C. within the United mobile app," United said in a statement. "As part of the normal pre-boarding process, gate agents began clearing standby and upgrade customers, including the first customer on the waitlist for an upgrade."

Simon denies that she cancelled her ticket. She sent a reporter a screenshot of the United website showing only one "inactive" reservation – a flight to Houston in August to visit her daughter that she had to cancel because of Hurricane Harvey.

A United official said screenshot doesn't show the December flight as cancelled because she ultimately took the flight.

The official provided another screenshot of United's internal software system and said that it showed the flight had been cancelled on a mobile app, though a reporter was unable to independently verify that on Saturday because of the system's coding.

Jackson Lee issued a statement on Saturday afternoon saying: "I asked for nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary and received nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary."

Simon said she saw Jackson Lee board the plane with a flight attendant before all of the other passengers, but did not know who she was until another passenger told her after they were seated.

A mechanical problem with the plane delayed take-off and after about 50 minutes, she said, passengers were invited to consult with a gate agent about alternative flights.

Simon said she went to the front and snapped a photo of Jackson Lee and told a flight attendant that she knew why she'd been bumped.

In her statement, Jackson Lee said she overheard Simon speaking with an African-American flight attendant and saw her snap the photo.

"Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice," Jackson Lee said in the statement. "This saddens me, especially at this time of year given all of the things we have to work on to help people. But in the spirit of this season and out of the sincerity of my heart, if it is perceived that I had anything to do with this, I am kind enough to simply say sorry."

Simon said Jackson Lee's statement accused her of racism, adding: "I had no idea who was in my seat when I complained at the gate that my seat had been given to someone else," she said. "There is no way you can see who is in a seat from inside the terminal."

About five minutes after Simon took the photo on the plane, Simon said, another flight attendant sat next her and asked if she "was going to be a problem."

Simon said she replied that she just wanted to go home.

She said the plane took off at 12:50 p.m. and she arrived home that night, still upset. Simon wrote a letter to airline's CEO and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. A "resolution manager" called her Saturday morning and apologized at least a half-dozen times, she said.

She said she wants a formal, written apology from United.

"It's just impossible to suspend disbelief and swallow that story that I cancelled my flight," Simon said.

United has suffered a string of customer relations gaffes this year.

In June, a woman said she was forced to give up her 2-year-old's $969 seat on a flight from Houston to Boston and hold him for roughly three hours because the airline sold the seat.

In April, Dr. David Dao was forcibly removed from a United Express flight in Chicago to make space for crew members headed to Louisville, Ky.

The airline announced policy changes after that incident and its CEO, Oscar Munoz, has promised a "culture shift toward becoming a better, more customer-focused airline."